whoever is elected president is going to have hard time solving. >> how did the steelers do today? speaking of going up the middle. >> the steelers were magnificent. >> i've heard enough. howard fineman, thank you for joining us tonight. appreciate it. that's "the ed show." i'm ed schultz. "the rachel maddow" show begins right now. good evening, rachel. >> good evening, ed. my local bar here in new york city is a steelers bar. >> way to go, rachel. >> at the risk of getting either way too many free drinks or none ever the rest of my life, it was an exciting end of the game. >> thank you. >> well done, man. thanks a lot. >> you bet. >> thanks to you at home for staying with us for this special sunday, sunday, sunday! two days to go, monster truck election derby special edition of "the rachel maddow show." we've been waiting to do that all year long. all right. you ready? today we saw the largest crowds we have seen at political rallies this entire election season. mitt romney spoke to an estimated 4,500 people in des

moines, iowa, this morning. then governor romney flew to cleveland, ohio, where another 6,000-plus people showed up to hear him speak. then he went to pennsylvania. after that he bolted for virginia. this is a big, big day for the romney campaign. just as this is a big, big day for the obama campaign. president obama's schedule today includes a late-night rally in aurora, colorado. he's also in cincinnati, ohio. the president drew a crowd of 23,000 people this afternoon in hollywood, florida, after 24,000 people turned out last night to hear him in virginia. think about that. 24,000 in virginia last night. 23,000 people in florida today. in concord, new hampshire, this morning, when 14,000 people turned out to hear president obama, that was the largest crowd ever assembled for a political event in the entire state of new hampshire. in the entire history of the state of new hampshire. i realize new hampshire may not be big, but new hampshire is old. and this is the biggest

political rally ever held in the state of new hampshire for the entire time that new hampshire has existed. we cannot be sure why more people are turning out to hear president obama today than are turning out to hear mitt romney. maybe it's just the power of incumbency. people want to hear a president speak no matter who the president is just because he's a president. governor romney's rallies have today have been significantly smaller than obama's. for the romney campaign, these are really quite good crowds. all around for both campaigns these are huge crowds in relative terms and in absolute terms. now it's the part of the campaign where we also start watching another variety of huge crowds. look at this. oh, man. crowds of people lining up to vote in florida. we have been getting reports that the wait for early voting in florida can last for an hour or two hours or four hours or five hours or eight hours.

viewers of this show have been sending us these pictures of people losing entire workdays in an effort to cast a ballot. it's not as if florida had an electoral accident where the situation should surprise the officials in charge of running the election. florida had seriously long lines for early voting in the last presidential election as well in 2008. after they had the long lines in 2008, florida's new republican governor rick scott last year decided to cut the days for early voting almost in half. obviously making a bad situation already worse. on thursday, florida democrats, plus one republican county elections official, plus the nonpartisan league of women voters, all asked governor rick scott to do what previous republican governors have done when there have been long lines at florida polls. they asked him to extend early voting for one day, this day, sunday. speaking to reporters at a republican fund-raiser on thursday, governor scott said, no. he said he wouldn't do. he said early voting ends on saturday night. never mind about the giant lines. when we came into work to put

together this show, we found in our inbox this photo. voters, citizens of florida, americans, lined up in the dark. in this case in the predawn early morning dark hours of saturday waiting to vote. think about that. predawn. these people clearly hoped if they got there early enough for the last day of early voting they could make it through that line in time to go to work or get home to their families for a regular saturday but, nope, not this year. not with governor rick scott's rules restricting voting time. the line outside one place down stretching out the door, down the sidewalk, around the corner and down some more sidewalk and also then across the big lawn. four hours later when you got through that and made it inside the building, inside the library where you were allowed to voelte, you were still not de with the waiting. the person reported waiting a total of eight and a half hours to vote in miami-dade county.

happy saturday. welcome to democracy, florida style. i don't know how you spent your saturday night. in miami thousands of people appear to have spent saturday night standing in line waiting to vote. everybody who got in line before the polls closed at 7:00 was supposed to be allowed to vote last night. well, in miami-dade the wait at that point was still several hours long so the last voter in miami-dade county last night checked into the voting place at 1:00 in the morning. having been there a minimum of six hours already by the time they checked in to vote. voting is not supposed to work like this. i'm not sure democracy as an exercise or institution or the way we choose our leaders can work like this. you are not supposed to need to bring food and water and a chair in order to vote. you're not supposed to need an entire day off work or a sitter to watch your kids all day long in order to vote. but that is what governor rick scott said would be just fine for the people of florida, after seeing long lines especially in south florida where a third of the state's registered democrats

live, after seeing long, long, long, long lines he said let's make them longer. let's make them longer for this election. long lines are fine with me. because governor rick scott would offer no help, south florida after asking for help on thursday night, south florida woke up to longer line this is weekend. very early this morning the florida democratic party sued in federal court, asking a judge to do what florida's republican governor is refusing to do, namely to make it possible to vote in florida without enduring a democracy marathon in order to do it. faced with that lawsuit and with the evident problem of voters not being able to vote a few florida counties decided maybe they better do something after all on their own. the counties came up with basically a work do workaround plan. you still could not technically early vote today in most of florida, but around the the city of tampa in pinellas and hillsborough county, you could pick up an over the counter absentee ballot. fill it in there and hand it in

right there. you could do that all day in greater tampa. in orange county, which includes orlando, a judge ordered the day of early voting after a bomb scare kept the polls closed there for several hours. the situation in miami-dade county got really kind of nuts today. at least that's how it seems to me. i was watching reporting from miami-dade all day today. it started to feel like farce. after people were still voting, last night, at 1:00 in the morning in miami-dade, miami-dade finally, belatedly decided they were going to let people pick up an senty ballots today, fill them out and hand them in like was happening in a few other florida counties. okay so far, right? we have seen already what happens in florida these days when you offer people the chance to vote. turns out they want to vote and they try to vote. oh, no, we're not prepared for that. today nearly 200 people got in line outside the elections bureau in a republican leaning town. and the only place you can vote in miami-dade county. imagine that. they said you could vote there. so voters turned up trying to

vote which of course occasioned a pefreak-out. the election staff locked the doors. first they said they did have the equipment tor the staff. to handle voting that day. then they gave another reason. they said the republican mayor had not signed off on the plan. whatever the reason for miami-dade saying hey, come vote today. then when pem showed up to vote, they locked the doors on them. whatever the reasons, the crowd at that voting place would not leave. >> let us vote! let us vote! let us vote! >> one voter who waited with -- for two hours with her 4-year-old grandson told "the miami herald," quote, this is america, not a third world country. "the herald" says most people did stay in line even after elections officials closed the door on them. then somebody started towing cars out of the parking lot where people parked to be there, trying to vote. an hour later, an hour after locking its doors on the voters

lined up outside, after people's cars had started to be towed out of the lot they parked in in order to be there, an hour later miami-dade reconsidered its decision to reconsider. . the county relented and they opened the doors. they say anybody in line by 5:00 p.m. can cast an in person absentee ballot. when the deadline rolled around there were still 400 people waiting. we were told campaign workers started handing out water and granola bars because it's only reasonable to expect those florida citizens might be thirsty and hungry and tired and maybe furious by the time they got to vote. and frankly because those voters are heroes for finishing how they started. maybe it's just me, but i did not grow up with the expectation that casting a ballot was supposed to be an endurance sport. it's not supposed to be an obstacle course. voting is a good and right and civic thing to do, but we do not expect it to be a matter of personal heroism. not on this scale. not for thousands of people. not because one republican governor says that is the way he wants it to be.

i'll have steve kornacki here in just a moment to analyze the impact of this debacle on the election overall. but joining us now is a combatant in the current fight right now if nl. scott ars know is executive director of the florida democratic party suing for more early voting in the sunshine state of eight-hour lines to vote. thank you for your time. i know you're very busy. >> thank you for having me. appreciate it. >> it was amazing watching the realtime reporting today coming out of south florida and what was going on there. first of all, let me ask you, if i got anything wrong in terms of trying to explain what's going on. and let me ask if you have any updates for us on the current battle over those early voting rules? >> well, you got it absolutely right, rachel. what we've seen here is just an explosion of enthusiasm from florida voters, particularly democrats, all across the state. really having a record early vote. we had on saturday the largest early vote in florida history and it's just been great to see. but what you've also seen is the

problems that come with it when you have a republican governor who decided he really just doesn't want people to vote. we've had tremendously long lines. we frankly decided we had to do something last night which was file this lawsuit. but we've also seen our supervisors across the state step up on their own and allow folks to have what you correctly called over the counter voting which is essentially early voting in some of our large areas where you've seen a lot of these lines. >> in terms of the overall effect of this kind of chaos today, however things were resolved ultimately in miami-dade today with just that fiasco but also with the long, long, long waits to early vote and the confusion over when and where people would be allowed to vote. is that confusion and that chaos itself suppressive? do fewer people end up voting because they're worried they don't know what to expect and they try to cast their ballots and can't plan their lives around that kind of uncertainty? >> look, you're absolutely right. this is not the way it's

supposed to work. voting is supposed to be something we're making easier for people to do, not harder. but what we're seeing is people are overcoming these obstacles. people want to vote in this election. people feel passionately about the president. his message has really broken through in florida. and people are overcoming obstacles. you called them heros and they are. they're standing in line for eight, sometimes nine hours to vote. and i think that's incredible. it's important. and i think we're going to see this here in florida through tuesday. >> what is your strategy from the democratic party's perspective in terms of tomorrow and election day as well? obviously a lot more polling places will be open on election day. but i think we can expect given what we've seen so far that there's -- it still may be tough. what's your party's strategy? >> well, tomorrow, monday, we're going to have six florida counties that are going to allow early vote or over the counter voting. we're already getting the word out in those counties to get

folks out to the polls tomorrow who want to vote early the day before. and a lot of people aren't going to be able to vote on tuesday because they have to work. we have to make sure that gets done tomorrow. and then we're ready for tuesday. we have the largest, strongest ground game that florida has ever seen. we're ready for election day. and we think we're going to have a tremendous turnout on tuesday. >> scott, executive director of the florida democratic party. thank you for being here tonight, sir. keep us posted. >> thank you. >> no, it is not rocket science here, right? i mean, the more opportunities people have to vote and the the easier it is to vote, the more people vote. the more people vote, both parties agree, the better it is for democrats. that's all this is. your voting rights are at the mercy of a partisan decision process and in this case partisan state leadership. that's all this is. after the 2008 election was over, we learned the story of what turned out to be the most amazing, or at least dramatic thing about that race. and it turns out that it was the behind the scenes chaos and drama between the mccain side and the palin side of the mccain

/palin ticket. we didn't know about it in 2008 until it was done and the post mortems on that campaign were told but it turned eed out to amazing story. this year we are learning that is playing out all over again. for a press corp. so supposedly obsessed with politics and the personalities involved, i can t believe this isn't getting more attention, but we've got the story ahead. stay with us. so, what hap

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as the candidates lavish more attention on the great state of ohio than even the great state of ohio probably wants at this point, the people of the great state of ohio who are trying to cast their vote for president are finding that it is a heck of a challenge in some places to do so. this is ohio this weekend. voters lining up to early vote. in some cases they're lining up in really, really, really long lines to early vote. this photo of an early voting line in franklin county, ohio, a reporter said it was hard to find the end of the line. this photo of an early voting line in delaware county ohio came from an ohio public radio reporter who said the line wraps around the back of the building and that at that site up to 90-minute wait times are being reported. slate.com reported this video in akron saying, quote, this is, like, a third of the vote line.

these shots of early voting was tweeted by a "huffington post" reporter. she says, see that white building on the end? the line wraps around that corner. the only reason early voting is happening in ohio at all is because of a court order. republicans running ohio tried last year to cut early voting in the state in half. they changed course and backed off that when it looked like it would be on the way to a citizens repeal the same way the unions laws was repealed. instead of cutting early voting in half, they settled for just eliminating the last three days of early voting for most ohioans. then the obama campaign and the ohio democrats sued and won. the federal judge overturned the law cutting out the last three days of early voting. but ohio republicans still did not give up. they fought tooth and nail to give ohioans fewer opportunities to vote. they took their case all the way to the united states supreme court and lost. the supreme court refused to alloy ohio's republican secretary of state john husted

to shut down the last three days of early voting. so in the end ohio republicans were not allowed to eliminate early voting in the final three days ahead of the election. but they are nothing if not dedicated to reducing the opportunity for you to vote in ohio in even those court rulings against them. even with all the court rulings against them, they did manage to cut down on early voting hours this weekend. that must have helped with the lines. republican secretary of state husted who went to the supreme court to try to eliminate the early voting days all together, when he lost the battle he set the schedule for the last three days of early voting and set significantly fewer overall hours on those days than voters had enjoyed back in 2008. ari berman from "the nation" did the math on this. in '08 in the final three-day stretch for election day ohio voters had 24 hours to early vote in total. in franklin county where columbus is. and 18 1/2 in cuyahoga county where cleveland

is. this year a total of 16 hours over those three days. fewer hours of early voting is how you get lines that look like this. in places like columbus and cleveland and akron. it's an impediment to voting, and it is on purpose. here's another one not on purpose. "the new york times" reporting today, quote, in ohio the crucial democratic strong hold of cuyohoga county which includes cleveland had more people vote early every day this year than in 2008, until monday. what happened monday? hurricane sandy. the day of the storm when the daily tally began to lag from its levels of four years ago. so barriers to voting this year are in some cases acts of god. like big, bad weather events. sometimes they are also acts of man. like republican state election officials working to make voting more difficult and less available. in either case, ohio hangs in the balance, as does the election. joining us now is steve kornacki. he's co-host of msnbc's "the cycle" and senior writer for

salon.com. it's food to see you and sit next to you at this awkward angle. i'll give you the side eye while we discuss this. ohio is facing a double whammy in terms of voting rights. ohio is always important. it feels more important to the electoral outcome this year than in recent elections. we have john husted doing everything he can to make it harder to vote in ohio. and we've got the effects of weather particularly in that democratic strong hold. which of those things do you think is most important? >> the one i'm interested in is the provisional ballot issue. that's with the new regulations put in place now where if you show up, you don't know what presi presinkt. you go to the wrong precinct and this tends to happen disproportionately in democratic areas. nobody can be sure how many are democratic ballots and republican ballot, but there are more democratic votes than republican. >> a more transient population. >> exactly. the other issue is when you have i.d. regulation. if you can't provide the proper i.d. at the polls you fill out a

provisional ballot. you are to fill out this form in you're a provisional voter, where the burden is now on you to prove your identity on this form. it's not on the poll worker. it's you to fill out the form correctly. and if you screw it up at all with the last four digits of your social security number, anything like that, driver's license number, you screw it up, the vote is thrown out. in 2008 there was a total of 40,000 provisional votes in state thrown out. with this new voting in place, it could be much higher. we you look at it this way, the margin for obama in 08 was -- he's running at polls now at half the margin he had over mccain in '08. if 40,000 votes were thrown out in '08 and you made that a more stringent requirement in provisional ballots, that number goes up and obama is starting with 130,000 overall, it starts to get a little dicey there. >> then you look at giantly long lines and look at fewer opportunities to vote early which has also typically a democratic advantage in early voting.

>> right. >> you end up with a situation the way you vote and the way the votes are cast are tilting the playing field toward mitt romney in a way that may tilt it all the way. >> that's the story of the polling we've seen nationally and all the swing states. there's a disparity between if you take all registered voters nationally, barack obama is winning that. he's winning it by a good margin. if you go to likely voters, people most likely to show up, that's where romney gets his advantage. there's a big gap like in the gallup poll where romney has been leading. they are a lot more than the registered voter model. >> a difference of enthusiasm. >> it is. the broader the electorate is. the more people vote, the better chances are for democrats. the whole thing with the voter i.d. laws that have been passed the last few years about republicans limiting the opportunity for that electorate to expand. to put the electorate in a friendly mix for republicans. it's the same if you make provisional regulations more stringent, that will favor lower

turnout. that's going to favor a narrower turnout. that's going to favor a more republican friendly, you know, mix of voters. if you cut early voting, have really long lines, i don't know, 10%, 15% of the people who show up in the lines say i don't want to wait six hours or i can't wait six hours. that's a smaller electorate. those are generally, you know, there's a better chance a lot of the areas are democratic voters than republican voters. if you look at it that way, republicans look at the likely voter polls and registered voter polls and regulations and laws get the final result where the likely voter is and not the registered voter. >> let me ask you about one other thing i saw today. i don't know if you saw this. but the last final, i guess, supporter e-mails went out from both campaigns today. the romney campaigns final e-mail is a fund-raising letter. the obama is get out the vote, please volunteer. please door knock. what does that reflect? i can't imagine what romney is still raising money for now,

right? >> he started so late with the pennsylvania ads. maybe he thinks two weeks after the election he can keep airing them there. i don't know. the more people show up on tuesday, you know, there's some way to figure out before the polls close the turnout's level with '08 or higher, that's a great sign for obama and their main obstacle right now. if people show up, they don't win. if they show up, they do win. >> steve kornacki, senior writer at "salon." very exciting times. i appreciate it. ahead, the super sad true love story of congressman paul ryan's day planner. and whether it includes him serving as vice president of the united states. this is a very weird story. i don't know why more people aren't on it.

okay. colorado, colorado, colorado, colorado, colorado. of the last five polls of colorado, three of them show president obama leading. two of them show mitt romney leading. the website realclearpolitics does an average of all the polling on colorado, and their average right now has president obama up in colorado by 0.6%. 0.6%. which means that the race for president in colorado is a tie right now. this is a person whose job it is to oversee elections in colorado. guy at the podium there. he is the person who largely decides how easy or how difficult to make voting in

colorado. he's the person who decided whether and how to count the votes if there are disagreements on whether or how to count the votes in colorado. he is the top elections official in a very, very close swing state. and you should get to know hill. that's coming up. and more... on what matters? maybe your bank account is taking too much time and maybe it's costing too much money. introducing bluebird by american express and walmart. your alternative to checking and debit. it's loaded with features, not fees. because we think your money should stay where it belongs. with you. the value you expect. the service you deserve. it feels good to bluebird. get it at your local walmart.

hey, how come paul ryan doesn't really take questions from the press anymore? for a while there the republican vice presidential nominee, paul ryan, was giving two, three, four local tv interviews every day, talking to local tv reporters in the swing states

was essentially his job on the campaign. after mr. ryan was picked as the number two on the republican ticket, politico counted it up for today's story. after he was picked he did nearly 30 local tv interviews in ohio alone. he did 20 in virginia. he did 1 in9 in florida. he did 16 in iowa. abc news did a big feature an how paul ryan had done more than 100 local interviews in the swing states already. by that point. more than 100. the point of that feature, the point of the campaign bragging an how much they have paul ryan talking to local reporters was i think to present a positive alternative story line to explain why paul ryan wasn't actually taking questions from the national press. quote -- though the campaign frequently makes mr. ryan available for local broadcasters, the candidate has yet to hold a formal press conference with his traveling press corp.

don't think he's being protected from hard questions. he talked to the local press a lot. quote -- romney/ryan campaign aides plan to keep ryan on a steady diet of local interviews heading into november 6th. that's not how it worked out. they stopped him cold after this one went horribly wrong. >> i also wanted to ask about gun violence in our cities like clinton, saginaw. let's listen in. this did not end well. >> it did not end well. but it started out just fine. the reporter covers flint michigan, for the abc affiliate there. flint is a great city but it has tons of trouble. it's one of the most violent cities in the country. so terry asks paul ryan about gun violence and this is what happens. >> does this country have a gun problem? >> this country has a crime problem. >> not a gun problem? >> it -- no. i mean, if you take a look at

the gun laws have, i don't think president obama is proposing more gun laws. we have good strong gun laws. we have to make sure we enforce the laws. we have lots of laws that aren't being properly endorsed. we need to make sure to enforce the laws. the best thing to prevent violent crime is to bring opportunity to the inner cities. help people get out of poverty in inner cities. it's to teach people good discipline, good character. that's what charities and civic groups and churches do to help one another make sure they can realize the value in one another. >> and you do that by the big tax cut? >> those are your words, not mine. >> thank you very much, sir. >> yeah. that was kind of strange. trying to stuff words in people's mouths? i don't know if it's strange. sounds like you're trying to put answers to questions. >> okay. so the paper comes up in front of it. paul ryan actually made quite a bit of news in that one interview.

specifically just in that one answer. first he said president obama isn't proposing new gun laws, which will come as a shock to the national rifle association, which loves to run ads saying that president obama the communist is secretly stealing all your guns. then he said when people don't have much money the cause of poverty is people haven't been taught good character and good discipline. >> but the best thing to help prevent violent crime in the inner cities is to bring opportunity in the inner cities. it's to help people get out of poverty in the inner cities. it's to help teach people good discipline, good character. >> get people out of poverty by feeling them good discipline and good character. then a few seconds later the paper goes up in front of the camera and paul ryan walks out. that's the last interview that paul ryan did with a local tv station. after spending the previous month and a half doing one, two, three, four of those a day. that was a dramatic change in the way the republicans are running this campaign for the presidency. i'm not sure why that change did not get more notice. also not sure why it didn't get

more notice when in an "associated press" conversation a couple weeks ago paul ryan loyalists started floating their plans for what they think paul ryan should do after he and mitt romney lose the election on tuesday. quote -- these ryan allies spoke on conditions of anonymity to discuss private proposals they were preparing for him. if romney loses ryan will be seen as a contender in 2016. some of ryan's biggest boosters are considering whether it wouldn't be better for ryan to resign from the house. he could write a book, saving america is a theme often bandied about. or he could teach at a university. he could go back to congress, write a book, he could be a professor. once he gets this losing the election with mitt romney thing out of the way on tuesday. we have seen this sort of leaking from one wing of a presidential ticket before, in 2008 with election day just a week away, conservative leaders opined to "the new york times" about what they wanted for sarah palin's future if/when she and john mccain were to lose that year's election. quote, if mccain loses, she could emerge as a standard bearer for the movement and a potential presidential candidate in 2012.

her prospects in and out of government are the subject of intensive conversations among conservative leaders. the aides insist winning this time around is her sole objective, but there are signs she is making sure she is well positioned for the future if she and mr. mccain lose. seven days before the '08 election it suddenly became clear whatever they were saying about how confident they were they were definitely going to win, the plans republicans were making and the way they were positioning themselves including to the press indicated otherwise. that was october 28th, 2008. seven days before election day. now this past week it's anonymous paul ryan loyalists specklating publicly about all the wonderful things paul ryan is going to do after mitt romney and he lose this election on tuesday. then this past weekend a possible case of revenge for the loose lipped comments to the "ap" about paul ryan's post-mitt romney future. check this out. this is amazing from politico.com today. kudos to them for getting it. quote, campaign insiders tell politico new jersey governor

chris christie was actually mitt romney's first choice for the republican ticket. people involved in the selection process said the campaign believed there was no one who would be more adept and persuasive at delivering romney's message. advisers thought christie would excel at campaigning. want to play that anonymous source game? guess what, we'll play. guess what, you weren't our first choice. if we lose when we lose, it's your fault for not being as awesome as new jersey governor chris christie. the romney/ryan campaign is trying very hard to project confidence and calm just two days before the election, but this thing going on with the paul ryan press is not good. on the report staffers and strategists and surrogates will say this is how self-assured they are. this is why they will win ohio and pennsylvania. if they were planning on winning, there would not be this kind of split between the romney camp and the ryan camp. would there? the guy who i want to ask about this more than anybody else in the entire world is the senior strategist for the mccain/palin campaign from 2008.

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why did you make me do katie couric? did you see the coverage? did you? are you there? are you listening to me? >> yes, governor, i'm here. katie was a logical choice.

she's been very fair to us the entire campaign. >> you call that interview fair? >> yes, governor, i do. >> i certainly don't. she was out to get me from the get-go. >> no, she wasn't. the interview sucked because you didn't try. >> what do you mean i didn't try? >> you didn't fight back like in the charlie gibson interview, when you didn't know the answers you crawled your way back. you just gave up. >> it wasn't my fault. i wasn't properly prepped. >> a prep from "game change" the movie there. we had to wait until after the '08 election to realize the true and truly fascinating depths of the rifts between two sides on the mccain/palin republican ticket. this year what i think is an emerging split between the romney and ryan sides is turning out to be a thing to behold before the election happens. joining us now is steve schmidt. mccain/palin adviser in '08 he is now an msnbc contributor. . steve, thanks for being here. >> great to see you, rachel. >> am i reading too much into the leaks? >> i think there's an insatiable

appetite for process stories in a close election. there isn't a rift between the two camps. i talked to people inside the campaigns. people are very happy with the performance. of paul ryan. in the campaign. if he goes onto be vice president or if they lose, he has a big future in the republican party. he's the first gen xer on the ticket. he's going to be a player in republican politics for the next generation. >> how can the campaign both be super happy with him and there be no rift and the campaign be telling politico actually we wanted chris christie? >> i don't know how those storistor stories come to be. i'm sure somebody is talking to somebody at politico saying we wish it was chris christie. but i have no idea. i doubt very much that's mitt romney's thoughts. mitt romney cowell have picked chris christie. there was no disqualifying reason why he didn't pick chris christie. he went with the first choice. his first choice was clearly paul ryan. i take their word for it what they said at the time. >> why are the leaks happening at all? to me the truth of the leak, whether or not paul ryan really

is going to become a university professor and set himself up for the presidency if they lose this year seems beside this point what seems important at this point right now is there are people close to him putting that out there ahead of the election win obviously undermines the whole campaign's confidence. >> i think a reporter gets an enterprise story from the editor. they call around. they get people on the phone who are friends with paul ryan. they say, what happens if he loses? and people start talking. thus a story is created. >> in a discipline campaign, those people say, he's not going to lose. >> you don't know that those people are this in campaign. they could be people on the congressional staff or volunteering in the campaign. i doubt that's the core strategic team in the romney campaign is having that conversation with the politico reporter. >> it's not the core strategic team. because this is really bad strategy. you were the core strategic team in mccain/palin. you knew what you needed to say to the press every day. you were on message every day. you kept your presidential

candidate on message every day. what does it mean when other people associated with the campaign or associated with the candidates start going off message in that way? is that a broader sign of something else going on? >> well, if you were in the situation that we were in four years ago and we were losing the campaign. we were down by seven points. the writing was on the wall. we were going to lose the election. and so it brings out the best in some people. it brings out worst in other people. that fraying begins to happen. the senior people on the romney campaign just like the senior people on the obama campaign tonight, both sides are confident that they're going to win this election on tuesday. so that isn't coming from the top echelons in the romney campaign, for sure. >> the confidence of the romney campaign, we all know both sides project confidence. there's a lot more reason for the romney side to be projecting confidence at this point than you guys doing it at this point in 2008. but you do look at the swing state polls coming out. rafts of swing state polls coming out at this point. you get, you know, of 20 polls you get 15, 16, 17 of them

showing the president leading. in the face of that, the sea of blue when you're looking at the swing state polls overall, why does the romney campaign see that they're going to win even in the face of that? >> they're looking at the intensity numbers and the fact that the president on the ballot is at 47.5%, 48.1%, 48.2%, in state after state. i think that's at the real danger point. if you're at 49d 49%, you're at 50%, that's a very different deal. the 47%, 48% number, romney campaign believes the numbers are going to break for them on election day. >> do you think that? >> i think there's a chance. i wouldn't be surprised. i think with my head, i look at all the polls, i look at the totality of the polls, and it's clear in the totality of the polling the president has the lead. i also know if that lead is at 47%, 48%, it's a race. anything could happen going into election day. this is as close a presidential came pain as we've seen.

>> i -- just in terms of my feeling on it, i'm a really bad predictor, but i try to tell -- i'm trying to figure out whether or not people are being honest when they say they really think it's going to happen. seeing the leaks about paul ryan's future in this we didn't want you, we wanted chris christie thing. >> you're overreading. >> makes me think they don't believe it. >> they do. they're very, very confident. they believe they're going to win this election on tuesday. and we're going to see. we're going to know. as david axelrod said, we're going to know in 48 hours. >> we'll be knowing at the exact hour. we'll be sitting here. steve schmidt, msnbc contributor, always great to have you here. more on how difficult it is to vote this year and the people making it that way on purpose. that's coming up. customer erin swenson bought from us online today. so, i'm happy. sales go up... i'm happy. it went out today... i'm happy. what if she's not home?

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hey there, i'm veronica de la cruz. breaking news to report. we've been following the presidential candidates crisscrossing the country this weekend ahead of election day. right now president obama is speaking at his final event of the day in aurora, colorado. let's go ahead and take a listen. >> give it up to your outstanding united states senators, michael bennet and mark udall. and one of the best governors in

the country, john hickenlooper. we've got your former mayor and a great friend, a member of my national team, pena. and we've got one of the finest congressional delegations any place in the country right here in colorado, we're so proud of all of them. please give them a big round of applause. now, for the past several days, all of us have been focused on not just elections, but we've been focused on what's been happening on the east coast. one of the worst storms of our lifetime. and as a nation, we mourn those who were lost. and unffortunately the people o this town understand what it means to grieve better than most. because the wounds of that terrible shooting are still

fresh in people's minds. but just as you've begun to heal as a community, we're going to help our friends on the east coast heal as well. we're going to walk with the people whose lives have been upended. those who have lost loved ones. we're going to walk with them every step of the way on the hard road ahead because that's what we do as americans. we help our mayneighbors and friends rebuild. we will carry on with a spirit that says no matter how bad a storm is, we come back. no matter how tough times are, we will thrive because we're all in this together and we rise or fall as one nation and as one people. colorado, that spirit has guided us along this improbable journey for more than two centuries. it's carried us through the trials of the last four years.

in 2008, we were in the middle of two wars and worst economic crisis since the great depression. and today our businesses have created nearly 5.5 million new jobs. the american auto industry is back on top. home values are on the rise. we're less dependent on foreign oil than any time in the last 20 years. we've doubled our clean energy production. because of the service and sacrifice of our brave men and women in uniform, the war in iraq is over. the war in afghanistan is ending. al qaeda's on the run. osama bin laden is dead. we've made progress these last four years. we've made progress these last four years, but colorado, the reason you're all here, aside from wanting to hear dave matthews, is that we've got more

work to do. as long as there's a single american who wants a job but can't find one, our work is not yet done. as long as there's a family working harder and harder and still falling behind, our work isn't done yet. as long as there's a child anywhere in colorado, anywhere in the united states, whose languishing in poverty, barred from opportunity, our work isn't done. our fight goes on. our fight goes on because this nation cannot succeed without a growing and thriving middle class and strong and sturdy ladders for folks willing to work to get into the middle class. our fight goes on because america always does best when everybody gets a fair shot, and everybody's doing their fair share and everybody plays by the same rules. that's what we believe. that's why you elected me. that's why i'm running for a second term. as president of the united states.

>> obama! obama! obama! >> now, in colorado, in two days everybody in the country has got a choice to make. you've already made a choice, many of you, but there's still a lot of folks who have yet to cast their ballots. and they've got a choice between two candidates and two parties, but more importantly, between two visions of our country. it's a choice between returning to the top-down policies that crashed our economy, or a vision of our economy from the middle class out, from the bottom up. and, you know, as americans, we

honor free enterprise, the free market, the strivers, the streamers, the business folks, the risk takers. who've always been the driving force behind our economic growth. greatest engine of growth and process terty the world's ever known. what we also believe our markets, free enterprise system, it works best when everybody's participating. when everybody has the chance to succeed. when everybody has a decent education. and everybody's learning new skills and when we're investing in research and medical breakthroughs and new technologies. we think we're stronger when everybody has affordable health care. when everybody has medicare and social security that they can count on in their golden years. we think our markets work better when there are rules in place to protect our kids from